By Regina Garcia Cano, Caracas
Venezuela
Venezuela’s opposition and President Nicolas Maduro’s government were locked in a high-stakes standoff after each side claimed victory in Sunday’s presidential vote, which millions in the long-suffering nation saw as their best shot to end 25 years of single-party rule.
Nicolas Maduro |
Several foreign governments,
including the U.S., held off recognizing the results as election officials
delayed releasing detailed vote tallies after proclaiming Maduro the winner
with 51% of the vote, to 44% for retired diplomat Edmundo González.
“Venezuelans and the entire
world know what happened,” González said.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony
Blinken from Tokyo said the U.S. has “serious concerns that the result
announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people.”
Gabriel Boric, the leftist
leader of Chile, said: “The Maduro regime should understand that the results it
published are difficult to believe.”
Meanwhile, on the streets of
Caracas, a mix of anger, tears and loud pot banging greeted the announcement of
results by the Maduro-controlled National Electoral Council.
“This isn’t possible,” said Ayari Padrón, wiping away tears. “This is a humiliation.”
Voters lined up before dawn to
cast ballots Sunday, boosting the opposition’s hopes it was about to break
Maduro’s grip on power.
The official results came as a
shock to opposition members who had celebrated, online and outside a few voting
centers, what they believed was a landslide victory for González.
Edmundo González |
“I’m so happy,” said Merling
Fernández, a 31-year-old bank employee, as a representative for the opposition
campaign walked out of one voting center in a working class neighborhood of
Caracas to announce results showing González more than doubled Maduro’s vote
count. Dozens standing nearby erupted in an impromptu rendition of the national
anthem.
“This is the path toward a new
Venezuela,” added Fernández, holding back tears. “We are all tired of this
yoke.”
Opposition leader Maria
Corina Machado said the margin of González’s victory was
“overwhelming,” based on voting tallies the campaign received from
representatives stationed at about 40% of ballot boxes.
Authorities delayed releasing
the results from each of the 30,000 polling booths nationwide, promising only
to do so in the “coming hours,” hampering attempts to verify the results.
González was the unlikeliest
of opposition standard bearers. A retired diplomat, the 74-year-old was unknown
until he was tapped in April as a last-minute stand in for opposition
powerhouse Machado, who was blocked by the Maduro-controlled supreme court from
running for any office for 15 years.
The delay in announcing a
winner — which came six hours after polls were supposed to close — indicated a
deep debate inside the government about how to proceed after Maduro’s opponents
came out early in the evening all but claiming victory.
After finally claiming to have
won, Maduro accused unidentified foreign enemies of trying to hack the voting
system.
“This is not the first time
that they have tried to violate the peace of the republic,” he said to a few
hundred supporters at the presidential palace. He provided no evidence to back
the claim but promised “justice” for those who try to stir violence in
Venezuela.
The election will have ripple
effects throughout the Americas, with government opponents and supporters alike
signaling their interest in joining the exodus of 7.7 million Venezuelans who
have already left their homes for opportunities abroad should Maduro win
another six year term.
Authorities set Sunday’s
election to coincide with what would have been the 70th birthday of former
President Hugo Chávez, the revered leftist firebrand who died of cancer in
2013, leaving his Bolivarian revolution in the hands of Maduro. But Maduro and his
United Socialist Party of Venezuela are more unpopular than ever among many
voters who blame his policies for crushing wages, spurring hunger, crippling
the oil industry and separating
families due to migration.
The opposition managed
to line up behind a single candidate after years of intraparty
divisions and election boycotts that torpedoed their ambitions to topple the
ruling party.
Machado was blocked by the
Maduro-controlled supreme court from running for any office for 15 years. A
former lawmaker, she swept the opposition’s October primary with over 90% of
the vote. After she was blocked from joining the presidential race, she chose a
college professor as her substitute on the ballot, but the National Electoral
Council also barred her from registering. That’s when González, a political
newcomer, was chosen.
Venezuela sits atop the
world’s largest proven oil reserves, and once boasted Latin America’s most
advanced economy. But it entered into a free fall after Maduro took the helm.
Plummeting oil prices, widespread shortages and hyperinflation that soared past
130,000% led first to social unrest and then mass emigration.
Economic
sanctions from the U.S. seeking to force Maduro from power after his
2018 reelection — which the U.S. and dozens of other countries condemned as
illegitimate — only deepened the crisis.
Maduro’s pitch to voters this
election was one of economic security, which he tried to sell with stories of
entrepreneurship and references to a stable currency exchange and lower
inflation rates. The International Monetary Fund forecasts the economy will
grow 4% this year — one of the fastest in Latin America — after having shrunk
71% from 2012 to 2020.
But most Venezuelans have not
seen any improvement in their quality of life. Many earn under $200 a month,
which means families struggle to afford essential items. Some work
second and third jobs. A basket of basic staples — sufficient to feed a
family of four for a month — costs an estimated $385.
The opposition has tried to
seize on the huge inequalities arising from the crisis, during which
Venezuelans abandoned their country’s currency, the bolivar, for the U.S.
dollar.
González and Machado focused
much of their campaigning on Venezuela’s vast hinterland, where the economic
activity seen in Caracas in recent years didn’t materialize. They promised a
government that would create sufficient jobs to attract Venezuelans living
abroad to
return home and reunite with their families.
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